The economic crisis inside public employment offices: an exploratory research in Lombardy, Italy

The paper focused the attention on the public employment services (PES) in Lombardy, one of the more economic-advanced Italian regions. Historically the Italian public employment offices (PEOs) have been perceived more as a place for getting economic relief than for getting a job (suffering - as the literature has shown – the label “dole-queue-image”). In order to change this situation some relevant reforms concerning the PES (and PEOs) have been promoted in Italy in the last 20 years, but the results are very fragmented: in some regions (such as Lombardy) there was a broad application of the reforms (with different outcomes), in other the application was more poor. Moreover, during the recent economic crisis, PEOs have dealt with new challenges concerning both the increase of unemployment rate and changes in the nature of unemployment. At the same time, PEOs have had to manage some provisional anti-crisis measures, which combine, for the first time in Italy, passive labour market policies (several schemes of unemployment subsidies) with active policies (training schemes and various services such as tutoring and coaching). In this situation we have analysed how public employment offices have been perceived by people who usually hang out at them daily, i.e. unemployed persons and front-line workers of the PEOs. Different findings have arisen from the empirical research. In particular, in this paper we focus the attention on the relations between unemployment workers/users of PES and front-line workers of the public employment offices, on their perceptions of the PES and on relational processes that contribute to the shift from unemployed person to person who is ready to look for a job. The analysis of collected data and information points out a paradox: even if PEOs seem to confirm its image of place where it is easier to get economic reliefs rather than getting a job, the users of PES have declared a medium-high level of satisfaction for the services they used. Empirical evidences suggest that in order to explain this paradox it is needed to analyse and understand the ‘secondary functions’ of the PES supplied by the public employment offices. The paper therefore stresses the impact of activation policy in Lombardy during the economic crisis on different aspects of social exclusion. Taking similar existing researches into account, this paper argues for introducing a broadened conception of outcomes that such policies can obtain beyond getting a job. Data and information derive from different quantitative and qualitative research tools: - a quantitative survey of 994 persons who have been in contact with Lombard PEOs to find work after the start of economic crisis (December 2008); - in-depth interviews of 44 persons who have lost their jobs after December 2008 (male and female, Italians and foreigners, white collars and blue collars were interviewed); - participant and non-participant observations in 4 public employment offices in Lombardy. Qualitative and quantitative data was collected in the period from September 2009 through December 2010 as part of the research project ‘The Impact of the Recession on Lombard Society: the Social Consequences of Job Loss’ (Cariplo Foundation – Department of Social and Political Sciences of University of Milan).